It was a typical Saturday afternoon, February 14, 2004 when I was watching television and saw an internet-based news show mention a 3d virtual world called "There". I immediately jumped up from the couch and surfed to the There.com website. A quick registration with a $50 yearly membership and I was plopped down in Karuna. Thumdar the newb was born!

The fascination was immediate. At that time I was living in Hollywood, California and was tired of the whole Hollywood scene so, There was a welcome diversion. One of my first memories was meeting a girl who had a buggy and who offered to drive me around to see the place. We were cruising around Caldera when we came across an avie building within her paz. I was blown away. Jumping out of the buggy I stood staring with my jaw on the ground as this Thereian moved her deck into place and began dropping furniture. To me, this was entirely too cool and I was truly impressed. That was it ~ I was hooked and soon addicted. I needed a buggy - I needed a flutterbug - I needed a paz - I needed, I needed, I needed.

Soon I was deep within the auctions, looking at the Onus buggies and found what, to this day, remains my fav buggy. I began to realize there were all these people in this world being very creative and it truly impressed me. For 2 months I explored There and was constantly discovering things designers were creating, from great clothing to 3d objects. Creativity everywhere! I was in heaven! So.., I thought, "What am I going to do to add to this world?". The answer was obvious.

I had been designing websites since 1996 and decided it would be fun to create a site based on There. Through my friend aztec3, I had met Bedicus who had created a very cool hack of the There compass called the "Bedican Compass". That was just too cool. Also, other people like Korrupt were creating hacks of the There emotionsbar and yet others creating patches for items in world. So ~ why not put them all on one page?

It was five years ago today, Saturday, April 17, 2004, that I created and published the first web page of what would become known as "Thumdar In There". It was a simple one-page site that had a list of downloads available for those who wanted to get more out of the There experience. The internet access company I was using was a local California company called Quik.com, so the original website address was www.quik.com/thumdar. The word began to spread surprisingly fast and soon I was getting thousands of hits, which made it all the more fun. Soon it expanded into a six page site offering links and designer information and, after a while, I began hearing back from people that the site was a hit and everyone was using it.

So ~ I decided to take the next step and register Thumdar.com and make it official. Since then the site has gone through three major upgrades, the latest in June 2007 in which people could become members. Currently we have a membership of 5,200 with new members added daily and averaging just under 2 million page views monthly. The website has become an integral part of my life and has been an awesome experience. Sometime this year, Thumdar.com will undergo yet another major upgrade which will add new functionality and better performance.

Of course this site would be nothing without those who use and enjoy it. I would like to personally thank everyone who has helped make this community successful and who has encouraged me along the way. 'Cheers and here's to five more years!

Thumdar
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